Garreth bled from a dozen stab wounds. He fell to his knees, and it felt like the world should shake.
A single sound escaped his mouth as he drowned and choked on his own blood. His one good eye roved about and found her.
“—nt.” His mouth snapped shut.
She stepped closer and rammed her knife between his ribs, feeling him tense in pain, though his throat was too damaged to articulate it. He shuddered as she twisted the blade.
“Should have just told me,” she breathed into his ear, hoping he’d hear it.
Kissing his scarred cheek, she pulled the knife out of his broken body and flicked his blood from it, walking toward the spot he had betrayed to her just seconds earlier.
She heard footsteps behind her.
“Gods, Nora!” It was Shade. A thump made her think he had fallen to his knees beside the man he would have preferred to have as his father. But what did it matter now? She didn’t bother turning around to check. “You—you killed him. Nora!”
She said nothing, not wanting to waste her breath. Breathing hurt, and she was bleeding, badly cut. Her heart thundered as she spotted the opening in the rock, hidden between the boulders.
“Nora!”
She cleared her mind and squeezed into the small crack. It was pitch-dark down there. One hand, and sometimes one shoulder, trailing against the rocky wall, she followed the curve of the tunnel ever deeper into the earth, repeatedly scratching her head against the low ceiling. Suddenly, space. A light glowed dimly on the far wall. She staggered toward it, knees weak now, hearing the low murmur of male voices. She lifted her knife and the fury came readily, flowing into her tired arm, gathering strength.
She closed her eyes and stepped into the light.
“So…cold.” Owen’s voice broke with rapid gasps.
Nora opened her eyes and took in the stone chamber and the two men standing before her. Diaz. Bashan. Owen’s clothes lay in a pile on the floor next to what looked like a stone coffin. Where was Owen? She had just heard him.
Her gaze was drawn by a faceless, squirming statue in the middle of the room, made of liquid silver.
She must have made some noise, because Diaz glanced over his shoulder and flinched when he saw her. His eyes widened, and he raised a hand as though to ward her off coming closer. No trace of facial features was to be seen on the rippling silver creature that rose before her eyes. It jerked its body in ways a human could not move, folding in on itself.
But suddenly she knew where her brother was.
“Owen!”
She shouted and surged forward. Diaz tackled her to the ground. She tried to buck him off, but he pressed down hard. Her face grated against the stone, rasping the leathery burnt tissue on one side, breaking the softer skin open. Struggling to breathe, she had to see what was happening. Diaz slammed her hand with the knife into the stone repeatedly, until her knuckles bled, and still she would not let go.
The silver formed itself into a ball. A ball of light, reflecting the dancing torchlight onto the walls in flashes as it slowly started to rotate, compressing into an ever smaller, tightly packed sphere.
“Owen,” she wheezed, trying to lift her head to see better.
A sound like metal hissing in the cold water after a beating on the anvil filled the chamber, a sound like iron groaning in the heat, as though a man were screaming, his voice made of ore. Bashan extended a trembling hand to the ball, and it hovered over his open palm.
“No.” Desperation mixed with the roiling fury, and Nora elbowed Diaz in the face.
He grunted, loosening his hold for a second, and she jumped to her feet, racing toward the ball, shouting defiance.
Bashan was staring at her in disbelief, his fingers nearly touching the hardened silver surface.
She stretched out her hand, and for a moment it seemed as if the sphere made to glide in her direction.
Bashan snatched it, and as his fist closed around it, a blast of stinging energy knocked her from her feet. She was hurled into Diaz, and they both slammed against the stone wall before crumpling to the floor, dazed and blinded by the white light.
Tendrils of shadow flowed across her sight. Nora blinked, unable to do more. Everything hurt. She slumped against the wall, waves of pain flooding her, watching Diaz try to get on his knees and falter. A faint whir like a mosquito needled her hearing.
Boots strutted into her view. She lifted her gaze. Bashan towered above her, face nearly expressionless, his cold eyes confused.
He said something, cocking his head, his fist opening and closing in a pumping motion. Diaz answered something.
She watched as the tip of a sleek silver blade appeared in Bashan’s palm. Then closed her eyes against the high-pitched noise and endured another wash of pain racking her body, leaving her helpless against the coming final blow.
Owen was dead.
He was gone.
Become the Living Blade.
Which Bashan now owned.
Woe unto the world.
It was over. The end. The fury died, choking on the grief.
Diaz shook her arm. He was talking earnestly to her, his dark eyes filling her vision. He crouched before her to pat her face, but her head lolled, loosening the tears gathered in the corners of her eyes. She felt them stream down her cheeks with hot life as Diaz lifted her up, pulling her over his shoulder.
He carried her until the tunnel grew too tight for him to push through with her on his back. He set her down gently and pleaded with her once more, lips moving, words silenced, drowned out. All she could see was the fire of the torch reflected in the inky black of his eyes. After a while, even that reflected flame was gone.
And she was alone in the enveloping dark.
The Living Blade: Book Five
Firestarter
Chapter 1
The last time he’d felt so cold, Diaz thought as he stepped into the gray dawn, was when he had realized that Suranna didn’t love him in return. This far north, he didn’t fear the power her name stirred deep within him, not even her memory. He had always thought that had been his coldest hour, but now he wasn’t as sure. The world beyond the cave looked a dismal place. His eyes to the horizon, he saw the low tide bring the wight warriors across the causeway.
A storm mustered to the north, black clouds like a widow’s veil, promising harsh winds and kingdoms in the heavens. How fitting. Diaz stood on the bleak cusp overlooking last night’s camp. From his vantage point just beyond the entrance to the cave, he could see the beach of the small bay and the coming war band, and Bashan throttling Shade over Garreth’s dead body. Diaz sprang to action, quickly covering the ground, tearing father and son apart.
“What do you think you’re doing?” he nearly yelled at Bashan as he shoved him away. Shade was red in the face, spluttering for air.
“The little shit was supposed to be on lookout.” Bashan leaned over and slapped Shade around the back of his head. Shade tumbled forward. “I caught him filching Garreth’s pockets. Fucking ghoul, are you? Garreth’s dead, by the way.”
“How?” Diaz turned to Shade.
The young man shook his head.
“Did you do it, you little shit?” Bashan raised his hand once more and grinned as Shade flinched.
“No.” Shade’s legs had given way underneath him. He clutched a hand to his throat and coughed before trying again. “Not me. Nora. She killed him.”
“Bitch,” Bashan said, leaning back, scrutinizing the wight warriors splashing through the waves. “Should have figured.”
Diaz held out a hand to help Shade up. The young man’s grip was strong and he pulled himself upright. Diaz turned away and heard Shade sniff. The sound was muffled, as if the young man held his arm over his face to hide his red eyes. Shade tried to speak, but his voice caught. He cleared his throat and started over.
“He tried to stop her from following you,” Shade croaked, gesturing to the old mercenary’s body. “What should we do with him? We can’t just leave him ou
t here.”
“He died with honor.” Diaz clasped a hand to the young man’s shoulder. “But we cannot bury him that way. There’s no time.”
Shade stared at him expressionlessly. It was sad but true. They would have to leave Garreth exposed to the elements, without a burial, without the proper words to guide him to Lara’s final embrace. He hoped he’d have a chance to say a prayer for Garreth later, though the wight warriors might not leave him much time.
Diaz squeezed Shade’s shoulder. He had been a warrior all his life. Since he could remember, he had fought and clawed his way past insurmountable odds, most of them laid at his feet by his own hands. Like this one.
He licked his lips of the salty sea air. On the beach, just beyond the waves reach, the wights formed ranks. Not that they needed file and rank against the three of them. It was merely to show off their discipline and prowess. Diaz reckoned he could take down three, maybe four or five before being overwhelmed, if the three of them stayed where they were and let the wights come at them. But what was the point? Diaz turned to Bashan.
“And besides.” Bashan picked up Diaz’s earlier train of thought. “Garreth’s a mercenary. He always knew he was a feast for the crows wherever he fell. It’s his own fault he got bested by a fucking wench.”
“Bashan,” Diaz reprimanded.
“I know. I can’t believe it’s possible either.” Bashan spat onto the stone close to Garreth’s head. “Her against him? What are the odds? I should go back in there and put her out of her misery.”
Diaz said nothing, for there was nothing to say. He had considered leaving Nora a torch to face the darkness in the tunnel passage, but her eyes hadn’t seen him or anything else, firmly fixed on the void of Owen’s death. On the loss. He missed her at his side already. To distract himself, he looked down at Shade.
“Nora’s still alive?” Shade asked him, wide-eyed.
“She was,” Diaz said simply.
“And you just left her in there?” Shade asked with the measure of disbelief Diaz felt. Instead of addressing it, though, he turned back to Bashan.
“Would you like to talk to them?” Diaz nodded his head at the wights. “Give them words I should translate?”
Bashan turned his gaze on the wights. His fingers flexed.
“You could tell them to go to hell, but that would be a warning. So, no.”
“What are you going to do, Lord Prince?” Shade demurely turned his back on the cave entrance.
Bashan tilted his head to one side and opened his hand, turning the palm upward. He contemplated his empty fingers for so long, Diaz’s own hand clutched at the hilt of his sword, as the first line of wights came splashing nearer, eager for the kill. Then Bashan’s smile grew wider. A silver light shone out just over his palm, giving way to a tip of sharp steel that emerged until a blade longer than his arm gleamed in his hand.
Bashan laughed, and then swung the sword at the incoming wights.
The Blade itself made no sound, but the blow was instant. All of the wights, all of their ranks, stumbled and then collapsed into broken pieces and bloody stumps, wounds clean cut as though with a razor’s edge. No tear, no rip. Only death. Soundless in its fury.
Like a ripple in a pond, an invisible crescent of destruction let nothing stand in its path, bending tree and rock and cliff. The sky too rippled in its anguish, clouds whipped into fault lines, spelling out the fate of the world into the heavens themselves. Diaz watched the outriders of the storm, driven from before the three men left on the island, driven inland by the rage of one fell swoop of the Living Blade.
“Dear Shinar, Father of Light.” Shade clapped his hands together before his lips. “Have fucking mercy.”
A howl pierced the silence, inhuman, the raw noise of pain. Next to Diaz, Shade jumped. He shuffled his feet, his sword clutched tightly in his hand, pointing the tip at the entrance of the cave, then at Garreth’s inert body. He moved closer to Diaz.
“You hear that? What was that?”
The wail died in a wet sound that rang much closer. A movement caught Diaz’s attention. A shadow crept to the mouth of the cave, but remained hidden in the black. Diaz gazed into the darkness by the hard folds of rock. Hope kindled in his chest, but the motion had been a jerking one, like the scuttling of a spider’s leg. He dismissed it.
His throat was parched as he turned back to Bashan and the Blade. The smile on Bashan’s face died slowly. With a dazed look, the prince spread his arms to welcome the destruction he had wrought; then he stepped back to take it all in.
“We will cut down any wall that stands in our way,” Bashan said. He sheathed the Blade by letting it glide back into his hand. “And anyone that stands in our way. The whole world shall fall before us and be remade.”
He waded into the crimson water without so much as a glance behind to see whether the other two followed.
“I think,” Diaz finally answered Shade’s question, “I’ll take my chances with whatever’s in that cave rather than follow Bashan further.”
“I agree.”
“We’ll stay here,” Diaz said. “Just for tonight. We can bury Garreth after all.”
“Gladly.” Shade’s eyes narrowed. “Wait. You’re just buying time, hoping Nora will come back out of there and talk to you, aren’t you? As though nothing happened?”
Diaz regarded Shade for a moment. He opened his mouth to retort, but again his eyes were drawn to the entrance of the cave. An arm reached out of the shadows. The fingers grasped the rock and dragged the rest of the body forward.
Shade gasped.
It was Nora, hauling herself over the stones, mouth contorted in pain, short strands of black hair falling into her face. Diaz’s feet moved forward of their own accord, but then he hesitated. Nora wasn’t…Nora. She slunk over the rocks like an animal, sneaking closer in jerks and stops, as though she had forgotten how to move naturally. Her hand still clutched her knife as she crept forward, sniffing the wind.
“What the—” Shade stepped up to Diaz’s side.
“Wait,” Diaz said. He held out an arm to hold the young man back. Something felt very wrong.
Nora eyed them warily, her head tilting from one side to the other while she stole over to Garreth’s prostrate figure to sit on her heels by his side, rocking a little.
Diaz stood with his back to Shade, protecting him. Nora followed his every move. Their eyes met over Garreth’s body. Nora ducked, pressing down against the ground, as though hiding behind Garreth’s frame.
Then Diaz saw the flash of steel in her hand. She cut into Garreth’s side, reached deep into the dead man’s guts, and pulled something amorphous and raw out of him. She raised it to her lips, blood dripping from her hand.
Diaz pushed Shade back.
“I’ve decided to leave,” Diaz said. “Now.”
Let the dead bury the dead.
Shade nodded, transfixed. “Good idea.”
* * *
She followed them. At a distance, sure, but she crept closer in the nights. Diaz was certain he had caught her shape hunkering down in the shadows just outside of where he and Shade made camp. He sometimes left a morsel of cooked meat for her, shuddering at the thought of her eating raw flesh regardless where it came from, placing the bowl on the edge of their encampment when Shade slept, trying to lure her closer without disturbing the young man even further. In the morning the food was usually gone, the bowl clean, but no sign of her except a few broken twigs, sometimes a footprint left in the squelching earth.
Diaz was tracking Bashan’s trail. It zigzagged all across the landscape, as though the prince had no clear direction. At times they would catch up with him, his lone silhouette appearing on the horizon, cast black against the painted sky. Other times Diaz had to go back, retrace his steps, only to find Bashan had slipped off in a different direction entirely. Mostly, they were traveling in a wide circumference of Gimmstanhol, but with the presence of all the tribes at the Wort his father had called, Diaz was reckoning with p
atrols. Or rather, he feared stumbling on the remnants of a patrol cut down by the Blade. Also, deep down, his guts squirmed at the thought of Bashan and the Blade so near to the last stronghold the wights had left. Too close to his father. There was no way for the wights to stand against the Blade and win—that much was clear. So far, so good.
Their journey took them across the stretch of land east of Gimmstanhol that curved like the back of a cat, far off from the stone cone houses on the western side. Here the flat land was empty of settlements, covered with thick undergrowth, blackberry brambles, and heather that scratched at their legs during the day and made for uncomfortable sleeping during the night. Not that Diaz slept much.
Now that Garreth was gone and couldn’t share the night’s watch, Diaz took it upon himself to keep a lookout. He left Shade asleep in a small sandy ditch under the heather, protected from the icy wind and hidden from sight. They had found rest in a shallow valley, a small woodland scene in the wind’s shadow. A rustling in the dry bushes ahead stopped Diaz’s feet. Animals flitting about. It was impossible for anything or anyone to move about silently under the trees, which made this an ideal place to camp. There could be no sneaking up on them here.
Across from the valley’s mouth was a good spot for hunting, Diaz thought, and he waited, one hip leaning against a slender tree, bow in his hand but the arrow still loose. If he was lucky, he might flush a grassflea, a large rodent that scurried around these parts, not unlike a hare but fatter and with tiny ears. He yawned widely, feeling weakness spread through his body.
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